It would not surprise me if other states are at least trying similar online tools to engage with constituents.  The Washington example is the first one similar to national efforts that crossed my screen.  A useful policy question would be whether or not such efforts can comply with state public records laws.  Such concerns at the federal level have complicated the push (both now and before the Obama Administration made it a priority) to move more government information and activity online.

While this makes the astronomy minor in me happy, the policy analyst in me is wondering how much new stuff is hiding in old data, and how finding it can be encouraged.  On the face of it, digging through old stuff sounds like history, like archival research.  I can easily see some fields looking askance at such work as not cutting edge, not likely to produce results, and generally a waste of time.  Perhaps the robotic forms of research I posted about earlier could do some of this work, but I think there would be a certain amount of human judgment required.  Maybe that will change.

Three of the program’s social scientists have been killed on duty. One former employee has pleaded guilty to manslaughter, for a revenge slaying in Afghanistan. Another is awaiting trial on espionage charges. Most recently, a sexual harrassment investigation found that one of the Human Terrain groups in Afghanistan had become a “hostile environment” to female employees.

Now, there has been general criticism of this program, just like there has of the wars in which it has been deployed.  Those are all valid questions, but somewhat separate from the broader issue of what scientists can provide in terms of boots on the ground support.  Like their military counterparts – the Civil Affairs/Foreign Area Officers – the advisory role these scientists can play has value in working with the populations where military personnel are deployed.  It would behoove someone within the Department of Defense to do some kind of analysis of the Human Terrain program to try and see how the problems of that program can be avoided in the future.

In what could prompt another shift in scientific human resources, there are reports (H/T Wired Science) of a robot actually forming and testing hypotheses.  Working in the baker’s yeast genome, the robot Adam worked to fill in gaps in understanding of the yeast’s metabolism.  By scanning a database of similar genes and enzymes from other organisms, Adam utilized algorithms to determine possible genes in the yeast genome that would correspond to orphan enzymes – enzymes that had no known gene coding for them.  After forming an hypothesis, Adam would conduct the experiment, analyze the data, and refine the hypothesis.  The robot’s designers recently confirmed by hand Adam’s discovery of three genes that coded for an orphan enzyme.

At the moment, designing these robots will continue to be a specialized affair – one robot for a particular area of research will likely be different from a robot for a different area of research.  But if there is the potential of standardizing, or at least spreading, such robot development, how and where science can be conducted could change dramatically.

Once again, some of the routine tasks of science will not require people.  There are plenty of potential consequences of this shift, especially since many of those affected would hold Ph.Ds.  Lab heads won’t need as many people on staff, reducing the need to import scientific talent and reducing the positions available in what is the traditional, apprentice-like, guild nature of scientific training.  Given the near obsessive focus on numbers in the decades-long arguments over the scientific pipeline, a potential policy outcome of such a shift would be to claim the problem of scientific talent is solved.  That may not reflect reality, but that wouldn’t be the first time.

On the other hand, this kind of automation has the potential to dramatically decrease the costs of research.  If certain kinds of research no longer need as many people, the costs of their training, salary, and benefits decline or disappear.  Start-up costs for junior researchers and professors decline.  This would allow for research to be conducted at institutions and in places where resources are not as flush.  Running a small lab out of a state school or in an emerging market may not carry as many challenges (or as much stigma) as it does now.

This is, of course, speculative.  But if the policy challenges of emerging science and technology are to be effectively addressed, some speculation will be required to meet the changes as they happen, rather than after it’s been too long to address them.

You can read the specifics – statement from witnesses and Representatives, supporting documents – about the hearing via the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s website.  The really short version – the committee had Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigators set up fake companies with fake products seeking IRB approval.  So far, so good.  The tactics, however, suggest an interest in the eventual Congressional grandstanding had way too much influence over the investigation.   From the blog entry:

A three-legged dog named Trooper overseeing experiments on humans? An ethics committee named “Phaké Medical Devices” and based in “Paynesville, South Carolina”?

…

Another [fake IRB], called E-Z Reviews, was based in “Chetesville, Arizona” and was staffed by April Phuls, Timothy Wittless, and Alan Ruse.

By setting up the companies to look like something out of The Onion’s reject pile, the GAO and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations manage to make a mockery out of for-profit IRBs and the role of Congressional oversight.  Now if there’s cause, I have no problem with the former.  I have little patience for research misconduct and other shenanigans that undercut the practice of research.  To send a well-respected investigative agency – the GAO – out to capture a few instances of incompetence with an eye toward press releases and political vaudeville bothers me a great deal.  It suggests that the Subcommittee is not serious about thoroughly documenting the conflicts inherent within for-profit IRBs and examining whether or not regulations of not-for-profit IRBs (which aren’t perfect) could be of use.  I hope I’m wrong.

To submit a question, you will need to go online, set up an account (agreeing to the terms of participation), and submit your question.  You may present a question without particpating in the system through an alternative process.

In the spirit of other collaborative web tools, participants may also vote up/vote down other questions submitted, or flag questions as inappropriate.  The only grounds for flagging are violating the terms of participation.  As outlined in that document, questions need to be civil and on topic.  If not, then they can be flagged.  How effective this will be in reducing the slag often found in online comments or the campaigns to win online votes is unclear.  Then again, even traditional press conferences have a few odd questions from professional question-askers.

Soon in San Diego there will be the first test of a functional MRI (fMRI) machine in a court case.  Defendant’s counsel in the proceeding will introduce evidence from an fMRI scan to indicate that the defendant was telling the truth.  Wired Science has the details.  In short, the idea is that lying is connected to particular activity in a part of the pre-frontal cortex.  This idea has received a share of skepticism from some researchers, and that may determine whether or not such evidence is ruled admissible.  For California law, such science-based evidence must be readily accepted in the scientific community before the courts will accept it.  At the moment it’s unclear whether the technology will make the move from House to CSI (in TV terms).

In other court related news, judges are now having to deal (H/T Scientific American’s 60 Second Science Blog) with jurors spreading news about their cases during trial via social networking sites like Twitter.  Arguably this is an old problem – jurors are supposed to keep their information to themselves, and are supposed to consider only what is admitted in court – augmented by recent technology.  Given the added expenses of sequestering a jury (and the challenge of prohibiting such broadcasting and research in any setting), its unclear how the jury system will react to this trend.

I like this kind of work, and the other mapping exercises like those sampled in the Wired Science post, because I don’t think enough attention is paid to the interrelationships between clumps of knowledge.  And because often the research questions that spawn those clumps of knowledge aren’t the same questions as policy questions, maps showing possible connections have the potential to guide policymakers to more relevant knowledge, or to identifying gaps in knowledge, than through a traditional literature search.